Andy Murray Wins US Open

He may have lost Wimbledon but since then Andy Murray has been on fire. Winning gold at the 2012 Olympics and now a historical win at the US Open.  Murray defeated defending champion Novak Djokovic in five sets at Flushing Meadows 7-6, 7-5, 2-6, 3-6, 6-2. The match lasted  four hours and 54 minutes

Murray has really triumphed this year, proving all of the doubters wrong. The 25-year-old Scot won a Grand Slam final at the fifth attempt having lost his 4 previous tries. Murray won the US open title 76 years after Fred Perry, the last British man to win a Grand Slam singles title.

Afterwards, he celebrated the Grand Slam win with friends at Hakkasan in New York. Murray also signed a copy of the menu for staff. He didn’t drink any alcohol. Opting for lemon soda instead.

 

 

 

StartUp Saturday launches: Start your business in a day

 

Enterprise Nation have announced the national expansion of its successful StartUp Saturday one day workshops to help thousands more people turn an idea into a business and become their own boss!

For budding entrepreneurs who haven’t been able to attend the monthly workshops in London, StartUp Saturday classes are now coming to a town near you with Birmingham and Morecambe as the first two launch locations.

The ‘start your own business in a day’ workshops will be hosted and delivered by talented and entrepreneurial StartUp Saturday franchisees. Until now, the one-day workshop that offers everything you need to know about starting a business has been delivered by Enterprise Nation founder, Emma Jones, in London. Jones says: “Based on feedback from small business owners around the country, we are spreading our wings and will be coming to locations nationwide.”

The first StartUp Saturday franchisee is Enterprise Nation community member Rickie Josen.

Rickie Josen will be launching her first session at Hotel La Tour, Birmingham on Saturday 22nd September. Rickie has been self employed since 2004 and has run two different businesses during this time, with her last few years being focused on organising events and training alongside writing.

“My motto is that knowledge is gained to be shared and I love passing on knowledge, especially when it means people can get to the information sooner than I did when starting out in business. I would have loved to have attended a StartUp Saturday when I was starting out back in 2004!” says Rickie

“Enterprise Nation has been a place for me to turn since it launched and over the years I’ve enjoyed contributing by writing about my love of being self-employed. It’s the first place I suggest new businesses turn so it makes perfect sense for me to be a StartUp Saturday franchisee!”

Following a successful launch of workshops in Birmingham, StartUp Saturday will continue to expand to new locations with a vision of having weekly workshops up and down the UK!

Rickie can be contacted on write@rickiejosen.co.uk or on Twitter @RickieWrites

To book your place, please visit:

London: http://startupsaturday2012.eventbrite.com/

Birmingham: http://startupsaturdaybirmingham.eventbrite.com/

Morecambe: http://startupsaturdaymorecambe.eventbrite.com/

If you are interested in becoming a franchisee, please visit www.enterprisenation.com/startupsaturdayfranchise for details

Extinction is forever. Orangutans need our help. Donate now for absolutely free with a click

Extinction is forever.  Orangutans need our help.

Donate now for absolutely free with a click…

 

Jump on to Facebook and pledge your name in support of Trilogy’s campaign.  In return, they’ll donate $1* to the Borneo Orangutan Protection Foundation.  Pledge your name here, it takes seconds: http://bit.ly/Q2utJ1

 

Orangutans are one of our closest cousins, sharing over 98% of our DNA.  Like human babies, baby orangutans cry when they’re hungry, whimper when they’re hurt and smile at their mothers.

 

And they’re resourceful.  Did you know that orangutans make umbrellas out of leaves to shelter themselves from the rain?

 

Deforestation of the orangutan’s natural habitat means the leaves that form such an integral part of orangutan life are swiftly disappearing.  And our beautiful, intelligent cousins are rapidly heading towards extinction.

 

Trilogy has been supporting orangutans in South East Asia since 2009.   With your support, over $40,000 has been raised to help the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation continue their vital work.

 

This year, Trilogy wants to hit the $50,000 mark.  You can help – simply by pledging your name.

 

But don’t stop there.  Spread the word.  We’ll donate $1* for every person who pledges

The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation works hard to rescue and rehabilitate orangutans from high-risk areas and release them into wild, protected rainforest habitats.   Your support will assist the Nyaru Menteng Sanctuary, which works hard to care for over 600 orangutans.

 

* New Zealand currency.  Maximum donation $10,000. Campaign will run until 30 September or until 10,000 pledges have been made.  Rest assured – we won’t share your name with third parties.  Ever.

New Recipes For National Curry Week

To celebrate National Curry Week this October (8th – 14th), British Onions have partnered with Indian street food entrepreneur, Vinod Patel of Chula Fused Foods, to devise some mouth-watering Indian recipes using the best homegrown ingredients, ensuring the highest quality.

 

Onions are a vital ingredient to adding distinctive flavour to any curry, sauce or Indian side dish, and these quick and easy recipes show off this essential vegetable at its best.  Whether you’re an experienced chef or a beginner in the kitchen you’ll be able to impress your family and friends with these delicious recipes and celebrate an Indian summer!

 

Chula Fused Foods is Vinod Patel’s reinvention of the Burrito, through which he has taken the beloved Mexican concept and added an Indian fusion twist. Travelling from San Francisco to London, via Bangalore, Vinod immersed himself in all types of food, from dining at high end restaurants to trying out pop-up cafes on the roadside and was drawn to the creative side of creating high quality food for those on the go. His menu is a combination of slow-cooked meats and bean curries, roasted tomato chutneys, Gujarati yoghurt dips and crunchy salads, or as he says, a balanced lunch that will give you energy using less fat and salt than the norm.  His first street food stall launched in June 2011 and he hasn’t looked back since. To discover more about Chula Fused Foods and to find your nearest market visit www.chulafusedfoods.com

 

Lamb Curry
Serves 4
Ingredients
Prep: 20 min
Cooking 50 min
3 tbsp sunflower oil
1 tsp ginger paste
1 tsp garlic paste
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp green cardamom powder
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp salt
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 kg lean lamb, diced
2 British onions, peeled and sliced into thin wedges
2 bay leaves
400ml boiling water
2 tomatoes, halved and thinly sliced
Juice of half a lime
1 tsp garam masala
Method
1. Heat the oil in a large non stick pan and add the ginger paste, garlic paste, cloves, cinnamon,
cardamom, turmeric, salt, chilli powder and cumin.
2. Cook for one minute then add the cubed lamb and onions, tossing well to coat evenly in the
spices.
Cook over a high heat for 5 minutes to seal the meat then add the boiling water. Bring to the boil,
then reduce the heat, cover the pan loosely and simmer for 40 minutes.
3. Add the sliced tomatoes, lime juice and garam masala, then stir well and cook for a further 5
minutes.

Onion Bhajis with Roasted Tomato Chutney
Serves 7
Bhaji Ingredients
3 large British onions cut into medium half rings
1 cup chickpea flour, also know as gram flour
1 tblsp coriander powder
½ tsp caraway seeds (ajwain)
1 tsp turmeric powder
1-4 Green chillies, depending on how spicy you want it
1 tblsp coriander leaves, chopped
1 tblsp cumin seeds
1 inch of ginger, chopped finely
Salt to taste
1 tsp red chilli powder
Method
1) In a large bowl mix together the onions, chickpea flour, coriander powder, caraway seeds,
turmeric powder, green chillies, chopped coriander, cumin seeds, ginger, salt, red chilli
powder
2) Add sufficient water to form a moldable paste, and mix well.
3) Heat some oil in a non-stick wok, then make small dumplings of the mixture and deep fry
until golden brown.
Chutney Ingredients
2 medium tomatoes, roasted evenly until slightly black
3/4 tsp of salt or to taste
1 green chili
1/4 of a red British onion, diced
3 strands of coriander, finely chopped
1/4 lime squeezed

Method
1) Wash the tomatoes and place on a baking tray lined with foil. Grill the tomatoes on a high
setting, so that all the outside edges are slightly black.
2) Pulse all the other ingredients except the coriander and onion together in a blender.
3) Add the coriander and red onion and mix well. Serve alongside onion bhajis.
Onion & Potato Curry
Serves 5
Ingredients
4 medium potatoes, diced into small to medium cubes
2 medium British onions diced into medium cubes
3 tblsps sunflower oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp red chili powder
1 tsp salt, add more to taste
1 tblsp heaped coriander powder
Method
1) Heat the oil in a wok or deep pan, then add the mustard seeds, cooking until warm
2) Add the potatoes and onions, then cover with a lid and cook for 2 minutes.
3) Add the turmeric, red chili powder, salt, and coriander powder then cook for 5 – 10 minutes
on a low to medium heat with the lid on.
4) Remove the lid and stir, then put the lid back on and repeat the process for up to 30 minutes
or till potatoes are cooked through.

Edwina Currie, Ben Shephard go head-to-head to help young people cook

The oven gloves are off as Edwina Currie and Ben Shephard go head-to-head to help young people master their signature dishes

 

Will Edwina’s Curry or Ben’s Shepherd’s Pie triumph in the
Red Tractor beef and lamb 5by25 challenge?

 

Celebrities Ben Shephard and Edwina Currie are hitting the road as part of the 5by25 campaign which calls for young people to master at least five simple dishes by the age of 25.  On 12th and 13th September, in an election-style campaign, Ben will be visiting southern England, whilst Edwina tours the north of England, in a bid to get young people up and down the country cooking and mastering their signature dishes.

 

Each celebrity is aiming to gain the biggest following for their dish by encouraging people to vote for their favourite via the campaign website www.5by25.com and by spreading the word through Facebook and Twitter.

 

TV presenter Ben Shephard will be visiting youth organisations and community centres in Southampton, Bristol and Watford, teaching young people to cook his very own version of the traditional Shepherd’s Pie.  Former politician, novelist and Strictly Come Dancing star Edwina Currie will be cooking her simple lamb curry – with her own special twist – in Wigan, Birmingham and Halifax, Yorkshire.

 

The young people taking part in the initiative are 16-25 years-olds currently involved with organisations around the country including The Prince’s Trust Fairbridge Programme, Kids Count, Food Positive, Southampton Voluntary Services and Focus on Food.  Each of these organisations have recognised how important learning to cook is as a life skill and that teaching the young, whatever their background or circumstance, is a key priority.  The organisations have been working with the Red Tractor beef and lamb 5by25 campaign to help make this happen.

 

Ben Shephard says: “I’m really looking forward to going on tour with 5by25 and, in the spirit of friendly competition, I am fired up about winning this challenge as I believe cooking is such a vital skill to learn.  More important than beating Edwina, success in this competition means ensuring young people master my simple shepherd’s pie and can cook the dish for their friends and family for years to come.”

 

Edwina Currie, novelist and Strictly Come Dancing star said: “All young people should have the choice to cook and feel empowered by the knowledge of how to select, prepare and cook simple dishes from fresh food. I can’t wait to get on the road and start teaching my delicious lamb curry to all the young people I will meet. Beating Ben aside, seeing my lamb curry become the champion dish means that young people across the country will learn the skills to cook from scratch and feel confident in the kitchen for years to come.”

 

The Red Tractor beef and lamb 5by25 campaign was launched in October 2011 after research revealed almost 60% of Britain’s 16-25 year-olds are leaving home without the ability to cook even a simple Spaghetti Bolognese.   The website is core to the campaign and contains a selection of simple but tasty recipes including Edwina’s Curry and Ben’s Shepherd’s Pie as well as guidance on selecting the best ingredients and food preparation.  Young people are encouraged to cook these simple meals from scratch and complete the ‘Master the Dish’ challenge.

 

Jane Ritchie-Smith, Head of Consumer Marketing at EBLEX, the organisation that founded the Red Tractor beef and lamb 5by25 campaign, said: “We’re very excited to have Ben Shephard and Edwina Currie involved in this year’s campaign which we hope will really boost the profile of 5by25.  It’s all about helping young people learn skills for life including time management, planning and self-sufficiency through cooking; but we’re hoping to have a bit of fun along the way as well!”

Nominations for 2013 FDM everywoman in Technology awards are open

CALLING THE UK’S LEADING WOMEN IN TECHNOLOGY

 

Nominations for 2013 FDM everywoman in Technology awards are open

 

Applications are being welcomed for the UK’s leading Awards scheme recognising the achievements of women working in IT. The 2013 FDM everywoman in Technology Awards were launched by the UK’s largest female business community, everywoman, in association with womenintechnology.co.uk  to recognise the achievements of women working in the sector and to encourage a pipeline of new talent who will become future industry leaders. FDM Group is partnering with everywoman for the first time in 2013, following the international IT service provider’s Chief Operating Officer, Sheila Flavell receiving the accolade of ‘Leader of the Year in a Corporate Organisation’ in last year’s Awards.

 

Currently there is a significant gender imbalance within the technology sector with females making up only 19% of ITC managers and only 14% of IT strategy and planning professionals*. However the GCSE results announced in August showed that more girls than ever are choosing science subjects, and a higher percentage are achieving grades A-C than their male counterparts, demonstrating that the tide may be turning in terms of the gender imbalance amongst future generations**.

 

This Awards programme, backed by industry leaders, aims to encourage women to see technology as a fast-moving, innovative sector where they can excel, as demonstrated by the role models unearthed since the programme’s launch in 2011.

 

The FDM everywoman in Technology Awards are free to enter and the 2013 categories include:

 

  • Rising Star of the Year – awarded to a woman under 26 who is excelling in her technology career and is the one to watch.

 

  • Team Leader of the Year in an SME (with under 500 employees) – awarded to a woman whose team leadership has greatly contributed to the organisation’s success.
  • Leader of the Year in a corporate organisation (with over 500 employees) – sponsored by Cisco – awarded to a women operating in a senior technology position making a contribution to the strategic direction of the business.
  • Innovator of the Year – sponsored by IET – The Institution of Engineering and Technology – awarded to a woman designing, developing, researching or implementing technology in an unconventional and innovative way.
  • Entrepreneur of the Year – awarded to an owner/operator of a technology business whose vision and talent will inspire others.
  • Inspiration of the Year – awarded to an individual (male or female) for their active commitment to encouraging, advancing or championing the progress of women working in technology.
  • Woman of the Year – sponsored by FDM Group – awarded to an exceptional woman whose vision, innovation and success makes her an outstanding role model for future generations.

 

Entries are open from 7 September 2012 until 19 November 2012 and full details are online at www.everywoman.com/techawards. 

 

Maxine Benson MBE, co-founder of everywoman comments: “Technology has provided businesses of all sizes with the tools to thrive and succeed and is vital for the future growth of our economy. These awards celebrate the extraordinary talent in the sector and uncover the women who are excelling. We want to get the message out that IT offers diverse and creative opportunities, particularly to a new group of tech-savvy women that have grown up with consumer technology as part of their every-day lives. What’s more, those companies that nurture and develop their female talent are most likely to achieve success”.

 

Sheila Flavell, Chief Operating Officer and Founder Director of FDM Group states, “The FDM everywoman in Technology Awards are a fantastic platform to showcase and celebrate the efforts and successes of so many high-calibre women in such a male-dominated industry. We are delighted to be sponsoring the 2013 Awards and support everywoman in their determination to raise the profile of women in technology. Like everywoman, FDM is fully committed to helping more women further their careers and break through the ‘glass ceiling’.  At FDM, we are dedicated to supporting our female workforce and encouraging other women to pursue IT, and as a result we have seen the percentage of female staff increase to 23%, well above the 14.4% industry average.”

 

Maggie Berry, Managing Director of womenintechnology.co.uk adds: “Women currently only make up less than 20 per cent of the UK’s IT workforce so we are delighted to be working with everywoman again to uncover and celebrate some of the hidden female talent in the UK’s technology profession through the 2013 awards programme. We want to actively champion the women who are already doing great work in this sector and who, through these awards, will become inspirational role models for a future generation of female technologists.”

 

The awards programme will culminate in a glittering awards ceremony to be held on 19 March 2013 at The Savoy.

 

Twitter @everywomanUK – Hashtag – #ewtech

The Expendables 2 Film Review

Much fuss was made over The Expendables – a balls-out, high-octane, no-nonsense shoot ‘em up that Sylvester Stallone nurtured to the big screen. It was a lot of fun, and pulled together three Goliath’s of the action world (Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Willis) along with a handful of other action giants, both past and present.  Its success meant that The Expendables 2 was inevitable.

 

Along with the original ‘Expendables’ (Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture and Terry Crews) Stallone has more hired guns in the mix for the second outing. Liam Hemsworth joins the Expendables crew, Jean-Claude Van Damme is on villain duty, and a seventy-something Chuck Norris is thrown in for good measure.

 

Unfortunately, it would seem less can indeed sometimes be more.  Whilst the first film seemed like a genuine hark back to something lost; an old-skool actioner with some old-skool actioniers, The Expendables 2 reeks of ‘for-the-hell-of-it’ laziness. The first treated the teaming up of Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Willis as a momentous occasion and played it cool. Their fleeting on-screen trio – the first EVER – was played with a serious hand (as serious as one can expect) with only a slight nod to the audience. Action took the front seat in that film (action and ultra violence, which fans of the 2008 Rambo will attest to).

 

For this reviewer however, The Expendables 2 has lost its trump card and gone for the cobbled-together, self reverential name dropping road and left all the good, old-skool action behind. Don’t get me wrong, there is action. The opening 20 minutes is as good as it gets. But with only a few more exceptions the action is not only not as plentiful as I would have liked but also not as brutal and ridiculously OTT as the first. Jet Li (an undeniable legend) gives a bunch of goons a cooking lesson they won’t forget, but quickly disappears off-screen for the remainder of the film! Statham, it cannot be denied, is a remarkable martial artist and his action sequences are crisp, violent and precise. In fact Statham is also by far the best actor among the Expendable crowd and were it not for him they would be left following Stallone who unfortunately just looks waaaaaaay to old for this sh*t. Schwarzenegger and Willis (the latter of which can also act, but seems to have forgotten) is laughable (not in a good way) and at points cringe worthy.  Every scene with them oozes self parody, with trademark lines being cheapened, hung, drawn and quartered like never before. Oh, and Chuck Norris pops up for no apparent reason and shoots a load of nameless henchmen. Then does the same again later. Fortunately his beard covers the fact that he is also, unfortunately too old for this sh*t. There is also a Chinese woman who is involved in some way, but her acting is so unforgivably bad at times that I wondered if she may have been on work experience. I can’t actually remember what she did in the film except that she was somehow ‘important’ to the story, my brain must have attempted to eradicate her memory from my head.

 

This leaves us with Van Damme. It may come as a surprise to some – although not those who witnessed his performance in JCVD (2008) – but the muscles from Brussels can act. His performance is – along with ‘The Stath’s’ – the best in the film by a country mile. He delivers his lines with natural menace and adds a real villain to an otherwise empty shell of a film. It is thanks to him and Jason Statham that the film is watchable beyond the first 20 minutes. Sure he breaks out the spin-kicks in the show-down but c’mon, there would be uproar were he not to.

 

The Director Simon West (most notable for Con Air in 1997) does his best with the poor script and ludicrous amount of characters to crowbar into the 100+ minutes run time, but it ends up feeling like words, scenes and characters have been shoved into the Lotto’s Lancealot Machine with set of balls number 2 and given a good going over, only to be poured onto the screen like the contents of an un-drained washing machine.

 

Word on the street (the internet street) has it that number 3 has been given a greenlight, with additional names like Harrison Ford and Nicholas Cage being bandied around by publicity types. Whether this will add more gravitas (try not to laugh) to The Expendables 3 or whether or not they are simply yet more names to try to cram inside a 90 minute window with integrity-destroying consequences is yet to be seen.  Thank God the true, un-paralleled master Bruce Lee isn’t alive to be dragged dragon-kicking and screaming into what unfortunately seems to this reviewer to be a sad misfire of an action film-wannabe.

 

P.S – Jackie Chan, please don’t take any calls from Stallone’s agent. I beg you.

O-Food – Environmentally Friendly and Healthy Fast Food

One of the O-Food founders Jens Hannibal in the blue shirt

On Thursday Frost went to the launch of an exciting new restaurant concept, O-Food. This was the most inspiring event we’d been to for a long time. O Food is a new eco friendly healthy fast food restaurant. They serve seafood and vegetarian food but no meat. O-Food believe that by changing the way we eat we can change ourselves and the planet.

It’s not long before we meet one of the founders of O-Food, the friendly and passionate Jens. Jens tell us that their main aim is to create great food. ‘Everything else is just something we think everybody should be doing’, he says.

‘We’re not people who think that meat-based fast food is inherently bad. We just think that someone needs to take the lead  to show people delicious, low impact, alternatives to meat and mainstream choices of fish.’

O-Food sources all its produce from local sustainable sources. The fish it uses are non- ‘Big Five’. The so called  ‘Big Five’, Haddock, Prawns, Tuna, Cod and Salmon, are being terribly overfished and this is becoming increasingly unsustainable.

Jens tells us more, ‘It’s very sad, because people don’t know about these other delicious sustainable alternatives and there’s no demand for them, many of them just get thrown back into the sea’.

One of the O-food founders. Roel Philippart

It’s a major problem but people are starting to realise and O-Food is leading the way in raising awareness. Both Sainsburys and Morrisons have recently helped promote alternatives and they’ve seen a surge in demand for alternative fish.

Jens is so passionate and enthusiastic that eventually someone has to drag him away from us and take him to see some other guests.

As Jens disappears we turn our attention to the all important question of the food. Everything we tried was delicious. The chef who had put the recipes together was clearly extremely talented. What was particularly evident was the exceptional quality of the ingredients particularly the fish.

I was I confess surprised at just how good the fish tasted. The fish actually tasted better than the mainstream ‘big 5’ fish I was used too. We had two favourites, mine The Hastings

Fishy patty, Romaine Lettuce, Tomato, Gherkin, Curry Sauce

I don’t even like gherkin or curry sauce and yet this combination was simply divine, everybody we spoke to loved it. I urge anyone to go and try it if they can.

There are no sandwiches left! A common theme of the night as soon as the food was brought out it was gone.

My colleagues favourite was The Portobello

Portbello mushroom, mature cheddar, roast pepper relish, red cabbage, romaine, nordic pesto.

This was also delicious, a wonderful combination of flavours.

You can find a full menu and more information at the O-Food website. Everyone we spoke to from O-Food was full of passion and energy. This is a great concept and they’ve created some fantastic food. I hope this is the future of fast food. O-Food is far more exciting, tasty and healthy than your than standard pret or eat sandwich.

They are currently testing the concept and will be open until the 23rd of September with their pop-up restaurant. It can be found at 54 Rivington Street, London, EC2A 3QN. Open from 8am to 4pm Monday to Friday. Go along and try it! You won’t be disappointed.